Fall Out from the G20 Meeting: Are we a member of the Chorus that needs Russia for cybersecurity or the lead Conductor

Are we the conductor or part of the chorus?  Are we a global leader or useful idiots to the Russians, Chinese, and maybe even the Germans?

To be fair the first question was starting to be asked in the Obama Administration after the broadcasting of famed comments like "leading from behind." The second question pertains to where the Trump Administration is taking us.

Why do we need a partnership with Russia of all countries on cyber security when we have resources in our own country and alliances with reliable partners to fight the cyber war?

Why are we relinquishing our global leadership role in the world and giving easy opportunities for nations like China and Germany to reap the benefits and assume our economic role where our corporations still make great profits but with our global influence in history's rear view mirror?

It is okay if we want to share global leadership with other nations or blocs.

In the 1980's, Yale Historian Paul Kennedy wrote a book that gained popularity. Titled The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, it speculated that the new century would see global leadership by five nations or blocks. While dated in several aspects, Kennedy did see where the world was going in correctly naming five of them. They were the United States, The European Community, Russia (although he referred to it as the Soviet Union because it had no dissolved then), Japan, and China. Now a case could be made that he missed the emergence of nations like India and Brazil but this prediction, in general terms, has been somewhat accurate.

What the question is for the United States is will we continue to be a global leader and shining beacon for other nations and communities to draw examples from or will we be a great power that is isolated whose power passes as we continue to adopt policies that are reactionary, tribal (white's only), and backwards?


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/09/us/politics/time-to-move-forward-trump-says-after-putin-denies-election-hacking.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/09/world/europe/donald-trump-europe.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/09/us/politics/trump-g20-poland-reactions.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

http://www.businessinsider.com/australian-journalist-chris-uhlmann-trump-g20-video-2017-7

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/09/us/politics/trump-russia-kushner-manafort.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-ab-top-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/09/us/politics/time-to-move-forward-trump-says-after-putin-denies-election-hacking.html?ribbon-ad-idx=3&rref=homepage&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Home%20Page&pgtype=article

http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/08/europe/g20-merkel-trump-communique/index.html